Peter Mason whistled before he answered. His whites were still covered with her blood, the list of her injuries seemed endless, and their X rays showed a fair amount of earlier damage, maybe a car accident, it was hard to say. But what had been done to her this time had been damn near fatal. Her liver and kidneys were in bad shape too from being kicked, it seems like there wasn't any part of her that wasn't damaged. “I'd like to think she'll make it,” Peter Mason said optimistically, but he really didn't think she would. The head injuries just added one more complication. The rest would have been enough to kill her. Even one of her eyes had been affected.
“I hope they get the son of a bitch who did it,” the plastic surgeon said amiably, and went home to dinner.
“Probably her husband,” Peter muttered to himself. He had seen that before too. Husbands or boyfriends who were jealous or drunk or came unhinged for some minor reason that made sense to them and seemed to justify taking another life in order to soothe their egos. He'd seen too much of this in the past ten years. He was thirty-five years old, divorced, and afraid he was getting bitter. His wife had left him because she said she couldn't stand it anymore. He was never home, always on call, and even when he was with her, he wasn't. He was always thinking about his patients, or running out the door to save the victims of a car crash. She stuck it out for five years and left him for a plastic surgeon who only did face-lifts. And he wasn't sure he blamed her.
He checked on Gabbie himself several times that night, and everything seemed stable. She was in the trauma ICU along with a woman who had jumped out of a third-story window and landed on two children and killed them. There was a drug overdose in the bed next to hers who had fallen onto the tracks of the IRT subway, and wasn't going to make it. But Gabbie was still a question. She could survive, if she fought hard enough, and wanted to, and if she came out of the coma.
The nurses said several people had called about her from the boardinghouse where she lived, but there was no next of kin, and no husband. Only a boyfriend apparently, and he hadn't been heard from. Peter wondered if he had done this to her, and figured it was more than likely. Intruders didn't put that much energy into it. This guy had pulled out all the stops and hit all the bases. The only thing he hadn't done was set fire to her.
“Any change?” he asked the nurse in the ICU, and she shook her head.
“She's just hanging in there.”
“Let's hope it stays that way,” he said. It was midnight by then, and he decided to take a nap while it was quiet. You never knew what was coming. They worked twenty-four-hour shifts in the trauma ICU, and his was just beginning. “Call me if anything happens.” They exchanged a smile, and whenever she worked with him, she really enjoyed it. He was a nice guy and better-looking than she would ever have admitted to her husband. He had shaggy good looks, with rumpled brown hair and dark brown eyes the color of chocolate. But he was tough, too, not always easy to work for, but a hell of a good doctor.
He disappeared into the room he used when he needed some sleep. It was a supply room where they kept chemicals and a spare gurney, but it was useful.
And for the rest of the night, the nurses watched Gabriella. She never stirred, never moved, and she seemed to be barely breathing, but the monitors showed her vital signs were constant. They did another EEG in the morning, and it seemed normal, but she still hadn't come out of the coma.
And at the boardinghouse, the mood was heavy. Mrs. Boslicki gave everyone bulletins as they left for work, and promised to call them if anything happened. It was the worst thing that had ever happened in her house other than the death of the professor. They were all aware of the fact that Steve hadn't come home that night, and he hadn't called her. Mrs. Boslicki reported his disappearance to the police that morning. The police had talked to everyone the night before,